


First blush of fall

by storiesfortravellers



Category: White Collar
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Pre series, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-10 15:06:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal's first theft when he was 15. For Ash for the prompt "Pears."</p>
            </blockquote>





	First blush of fall

When Neal was 15, and his adolescence felt like it was pushing its way freestyle out of Neal's skin, he and a group of boys snuck onto the tree-laden grounds of a local real estate baron. They climbed fences and rolled through the dirty edges of half-rotted walls, and only Neal bothered to even try to keep his school uniform clean (even though his was the oldest, the most worn). 

They got to the pear tree, the one that the owner bought for decoration but never harvested, even though the tree was as high as three stories, even though it slouched with the weight of autumn fruit. It was only three words into the dare that Neal agreed to be the one who soldiered forward, who wrapped his arms around the rough, round trunk and used his weight to shake and jostle the tree until ripe fruit started plummeting down, a hail of green droplets that landed solid, with a thud. Neal closed his eyes and hoped he wouldn't be hit on the head as he clung to the trunk and leaned it back and forth with all his weight. 

When it was done, the boys cheered (for Neal, it felt like) and they gathered as much fruit as they could, holding the bottom of their shirts up like pouches, their stomachs exposed as they had to lift their shirt-parcels ever higher to hold their stolen harvest. They ran away then, to a field that no one owned any more, one of those long stretches of land that someone had bought in good times and now abandoned, and they sat in the yellow afternoon in the crisp fall air and ate dozens and dozens of pears. They didn't wash them, and there was more than enough for everyone, and as they ate, they let the juice run down their lips and chins and didn't care enough to wipe it off. They lazed on the grass, occasionally bumping each other with a laugh, a projectile pear that just missed the head or a shove in the arm that was just an excuse to wrestle someone to the ground before going back to lazy daydreaming, to being sated with food and the sense that they'd done something heroic. 

Neal remembered this day, years later, when he needed something good to look back on. 

He remembered eating until his stomach pained him but knowing that the pain was worth it. He could still taste those pears, sometimes, still feel the grains of the pear's flesh in his mouth as he lay on the ground, staring at the sky, blades of browning grass caressing the side of his face. He remembered the juice of it, spilling out against his will, all the sweeter for being stolen.


End file.
